Traces of Absence / Verdigris

Verdigris delves into a French dictionary of the chemical arts, revealing the furnaces, stills, vats and mechanisms of the compounds of the early nineteenth century. From refining iron, mixing acid and creating artificial minerals, to glass, sugar and soap, all these processes are all evoked in delicate lines. Tinged with tantalising green – the verdigris, the bright oxidation of copper or brass – these pages open what is closed to most, the possibility of experiments and the recipes of creation. Verdigris then sharpens to a metallic gleam – hardened and realised from descriptions on a page, as the bonds that form structures of a substance itself. Framing space – the mass of atoms and molecules we can not see but know to be true – these green lines surround the potential of man’s mastery of science.